Around two-thirds of the 170 candidates announced so far are said to be loyalists of the Chief Minister.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje appears to have had an upper hand in the party as most of her loyalists have found place on the BJP candidates’ list finalised by its central leadership. Sources said the party leadership has finally made up its mind to swim or sink with Raje in the coming Assembly polls.
According to the sources, about two-thirds of the 170 names announced so far are Raje loyalists. Most of Raje’s close confidants like Ashok Parnami, Rajendra Rathore, Ajay Singh Kilak, Vasudev Devnami, Kiran Maheshwari and Arun Chaturvedi have been retained. Names for the remaining 30 seats will be announced soon.
In the first two lists, the party has decided to give tickets to 92 sitting MLAs, indicating that the Chief Minister has prevailed over the central leadership of the party in deciding the candidates. The BJP has, however, denied tickets to four ministers while four others—Abhinesh Mehrishi, Ashok Sharma, Mahesh Pratap Singh and Gurdeep Singh Sahpini, who had crossed over from other parties— have also been fielded.
On Saturday, the party released its third list of eight candidates. It has fielded minister Surendra Pal Singh from Karanpur. On the third list, six sitting MLAs have been dropped.
Raje filed her nomination papers from Jhalarapatan Assembly constituency on Saturday. Congress has fielded Manvendra Singh, son of late BJP veteran Jaswant Singh, against Raje.
According to a source, the BJP leadership felt that the party has no other leader in the state who could match the stature of Raje and therefore decided to give her a free hand in the selection of candidates. What added to Raje’s advantage is the fact that she tried to bridge the gap with the RSS leadership and accommodated its nominees.
“As a result of this, many RSS nominees were included on the list, like Madan Dilawar, who replaced Chandrakant Meghwal, the sitting MLA. Dilawar earlier had an uneasy equation with Raje after he was denied ticket in 2008 and 2013 elections. Similarly, Sanjay Sharma, a key RSS functionary, was given ticket replacing sitting MLA Banwari Lal Singhal. Another RSS functionary Satish Punia has been given ticket despite the fact that he had lost the last election,” said the source.
Raje prevailed despite the fact that ticket distribution was done on the basis of the recommendations of a 14-member core committee, which included many from the anti-Raje camp like her Home Minister Gulabchand Kataria, Union minister Arjun Meghwal, BJP national vice-president Om Mathur and party general secretary (organisation) Chandrashekhar. Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar was appointed as the election in-charge of Rajasthan.
Raje’s tussle with the central leadership started in April over deciding a new BJP state chief. Party president Amit Shah preferred Jodhpur MP Gajendra Shekhawat, but due to Raje’s opposition, the post remained vacant for more than two months before Madan Lal Saini was finally anointed. Shekhawat was later appointed the convener of the party’s Election Coordination Committee, while Raje was made only a member of it.
The BJP ministers who have been denied ticket by the party include Babulal Verma, Dhan Singh Rawat, Rajkumar Rinwa and Surendra Goyal. Disappointed by the decision, Goyal has resigned from the party and announced that he would contest as an independent this time. The party has so far not given ticket to Yunus Khan, who is considered to be close to CM Raje.
The elections in the state are scheduled to be held on 7 December and the results will be declared on 11 December. In the last polls in 2013, BJP had won 163 seats, while Congress had got just 21 seats in the 200-member Assembly.